The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ

Lots of people wrote about the historical Jesus of Nazareth: both canonical and apocryphal gospelers, the Jewish historian Josephus, Romans Pliny the Younger, Tacitus, Suetonius and others. Each had different sources and different takes on Jesus and his early followers. ***** Philip Pullman in his historical fantasy THE GOOD MAN JESUS AND THE SCOUNDREL CHRIST shows a nodding familiarity with all the usual historical sources. But he seems more concerned to address, instead of Jesus of Nazareth, rather an old scholarly hypothesis that, yes, there had been a real, historical Jesus but there was also a distorted, concocted, fictitious Christ -- of Faith. Pullman's fantasy has Mary giving birth to non-identical twins: Jesus and a boy she nicknames Christ (Messiah). Jesus gets a lot of his ideas and techniques from John the Baptist. Christ assigns himself the task of writing the life of Jesus. ***** A mysterious Stranger appears to Christ and encourages him not only to chronicle the life of Jesus but to "spin" the facts from what they were to what they "ought to have been -- i. e., eternal truth inspired from Heaven replacing mere data. The Stranger has a low view of human nature and persuades Christ that Jesus is asking too much too soon of the Jews he preaches to. Rather Christ should work with others to create an hierarchical church: to enshrine the Scriptures about Jesus and to make sure that the world remembers Jesus. ***** The Jesus fantasy of Philip Pullman is cleverly conceived and well told. Read it for what it is and enjoy. -OOO-.